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Shift work raises risk of heart attacks

ELIZABETH JACKSON: A study published in the British Medical Journal has found shift workers have a higher chance of suffering heart attack, or stroke.

Shift work has previously been linked to other health problems, like an increased risk of diabetes and high blood pressure.

Australia's mining boom sees tens of thousands of miners working long fly-in, fly-out shifts, and the study's findings has some unions very worried.

Will Ockenden reports.

WILL OCKENDEN: Working irregular hours has long been associated with unhealthy eating habits and not getting enough sleep.

Shift work has now been linked with more serious problems.

DANIEL HACKAM: About one in 14 heart attacks and one in 40 strokes are directly related to the effects of shiftwork.

WILL OCKENDEN: Dr Daniel Hackam and his team from Canada's Western University reviewed more than 30 previous studies, looking at health problems of shift workers.

For the more than 2 million people the study considered, those not on the usual daily nine-to-five day job had a 23 per cent higher chance of having a heart attack and a 5 per cent higher chance of a stroke.

Any increased risk of heart problems causes palpitations at the Heart Foundation, and this study has particularly worried its clinical issues director Dr Robert Grenfell.

ROBERT GRENFELL: When you do shiftwork of course your life tends not to be as organised. In particular you would tend to have a more preponderance to unhealthy lifestyles such as not enough exercise and often the wrong choices in food.

WILL OCKENDEN: So is it that shiftwork is literally killing you?

ROBERT GRENFELL: I wouldn't go as far as saying that but I certainly would say that this study has certainly given us some more evidence to consider with regards to actually the health aspects of our employment and our employment conditions.

WILL OCKENDEN: The study defines shift work as evening or night schedules, shifts which rotate or are split.

Being on-call or casual counts too.

ROBERT GRENFELL: The hypothesis is that it's the disruption in the sleep cycle, so that you're not in fact actually getting the regular time of cycle. And the other part of that is of course the way that it actually breaks down a regular sort of pattern in your life.

WILL OCKENDEN: Nearly 1.5 million Australians, or about 16 per cent of the workforce, work in shifts.

According the Bureau of Statistics, for women, the most common industry for shift work is health care and social assistance.

For men, it's overwhelmingly the mining industry.

KEVIN HARKINS: I think because of the growth in the mining industry it's fair to say that shift work has increased beyond most people's normal expectations.

WILL OCKENDEN: Kevin Harkins is the secretary of Unions Tasmania.

KEVIN HARKINS: Those sorts of shifts that people are working destroy the local communities that they live in because they're forced to fly-in and fly-out.

WILL OCKENDEN: Kevin Harkins says the health problems coming from shift-work should be taken into account.

KEVIN HARKINS: I was in the airport myself this week and was talking to a group of Tasmanian shift workers that were on their way to the Pilbara to work, and while they said that the money was terrific, the impact on their lives was not something that they were enjoying.

WILL OCKENDEN: Shift work allows businesses and services to run all day, every day, so it's not going away any time soon.

Dr Robert Grenfell from the Heart Foundation says there are always ways to be healthier, like eating less fat and salt and exercising.

ROBERT GRENFELL: How can I fit 30 minutes of walking into my day? So that I can look at, do I get off at the earlier bus stop and take that extra walk? Do I in fact actually make sure that every day I do get some physical activity into my working day, or even at my times between sleeping and work?

ELIZABETH JACKSON: That's Dr Robert Grenfell from the Heart Foundation ending that report from Will Ockenden.

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